Cheese
by froodlemonkey
Summary: "Taste the Continent!" proclaim the signs plastered all over Eerie.
1. Chapter 1: Marshall

"Taste the Continent!" proclaim the signs plastered all over Eerie. Huge red and white posters depicting cartoonish Frenchmen proffering baskets of bagettes spring up in shop windows, and Marshall had rolled his eyes and grumbled that Europe was a continent, not the continent.

"Why would you call it 'The Continental Market' instead of 'The European Market', anyway?" he complained to Simon. "Continental Market basically just means 'market of stuff from somewhere in the world'. You may as well call it 'the World o' Stuff, except in tents.'"

Mr. Radford placed one Black Cow with a Nip of Java, and one ditto, on the bar infront of them.

"Now, boys," he said cheerily. "The Continental Market is a great Eerie tradition."

"Great," Marshall said. "I just love old Eerie traditions."

Radford pretended he hadn't heard, and went back to stocking Atlantean Algae supplement powder behind the counter. A Continental Market might have all sorts of things from the continent, he thought, but it takes a truly one-stop shop to stock something from a lost kingdom. His business would never be threatened by some fly-by-night vendors peddling bratwust and fried potatoes.

"They have turkish delight," said Simon. "And olives. And churros! Can't we check it out, Mars, just for a little bit? Please?"

"Whatever," said Mars, who was pretty sure that churros were just failed doughnuts, when all was said and done, but who wasn't adverse to fried dough no matter how ridiculous the advertisments for it were.

Outside, it was raining, a light fine rain that seemed to hang in the air, giving the street and everything in it a misty and insubstantial feeling. The day was overcast, the sky a leaden grey, and the row of white tents lining Front Street were decorated with fairy lights that created tiny, blurred halos of gold around the stalls.

The smell of fried onions, sweet pastry and grilling sausages permeated the air. Despite himself, Marshall found his mood lifting. The fairy lights, the food, the Europop blaring tinnily from a stereo behind a stall selling hats, all combined to create the feeling of a holiday.

Never mind that it was raining, that it was a Tuesday afternoon and that he had homework tonight and school tomorrow. Never mind, even, that "Taste the Continent" was the kind of slogan likely to bring the bargain-basement kaiju who lurked behind the Dragon of the Black Pool Cantonease Restaurant out of hiding in order to sample the taste of North American cuisine in the form of the people of Eerie. He had time; for an hour or two, he could wander through the displays, eat a vaugely European hotdog, and try on some novelty hats at the hat stall, because Marshall had a deep and abiding love for trying on novelty hats.

A pungent but not unpleasant smell drew him towards a row of four trestle tables groaning under the weight of several dozen huge wheels of cheese. Already, despite the weather, a small crowd had gathered, enticed by the free samples the vendor was offering. Mars watched Winnifred Swanson walking away with a cheese wheel roughly the size of her daughter, and shuddered to think of the artisnal cheese spending the next five years in a cylindrical ForeverWare tub, being slowly whittled away to nothing before getting stuffed back into its vacuum-sealed darkness.

He was dimly aware that Simon was not at his side, thought that maybe he had seen him over by the man selling Turkish delight and baklava, but right now his only thought was the fate of the cheese wheel, and the love and dedication that went into making that cheese, that delicious, flavoursome cheese, he had to have the cheese, he had to save the other cheese wheels from-


	2. Chapter 2: Fluffy

Fluffy shouldered his way through the tumbled piles of black plastic trash bags that were strewn across the alley, ignoring the delicious smells that came from within them.

He was worried. This was a recent sensation for him, and he found he didn't care for it. A good Beta upheld his Alpha's will in public, disagreed in private when appropriate, and ensured the rest of the Pack towed the line at all times. Fluffy was a loyal and concientious second-in-command; it was a position he excelled at, and this was where he was happiest. But now Fifi was missing, and the rest of the Pack were...

"I'm a dog too, you know," he muttered resentfully. In his mind, the memory of his Pack members stared back at him, unresponsive. "It's not like I don't understand where you're coming from, but you can't just..."

He came to the mouth of the alley, stopped, looked around cautiously before emerging onto the street.

Of course he understood. Like so many that had joined their movement, he had had a human family once, until one day, suddenly, he was too big, and it was off to the pound for the adolescent Fluffy. So he knew all to well the urge to fawn, roll over, expose his belly, leap up and lick the hated human faces when he should have been tearing out their trecherous lying monkey-throats.

When he was a young dog, newly betrayed and bitter from being delivered into the monster Dither's murderous clutches, he might have found it in himself to turn on those dogs who had turned on their cause, to enforce the Pack's will through tooth and claw. That was how it had been when dogs were wild and free, or so Fifi said, and those were the days they were trying to return to.

But those dogs were as distant to Fluffy and his comrades as the Dog Star himself; massive and looming and gobbling up suns and moons just because they felt like it, and Fluffy wasn't going to bite a little Chow in order to get his way, because maybe the giant sky dogs that birthed them all could have taken it in stride, but he didn't think a Chow could.

In the here and now, the murderer Dithers had been slain, and the dogs had claimed the Canine Arrest Team headquarters as their own and turned it into the Canine Liberation Society, a doggy paradise of pilfered treats and ragged couch cushions salvaged from the town dump under cover of night and dragged inside, the whole building carrying a proud Canid reek that made even their most servile brothers and sisters turn their heads and strain against their leashes as they walked by, close to the heels of their human oppressors.

Killing the fat human pup with the metallic teeth had been necessary, but when it was over, and Fifi had wanted the other two gone as well, Fluffy had pushed for simply securing their silence with threats instead. Scaring the little red-furred puppy by promising to eat him was funny, and would help build the pup's character besides; but actually doing it would have crossed a line.

"We're not cats, for the Dog Star's sake!" he had argued, in private, of course, and eventually Fifi had relented. She would never have puppies of her own - neither would Fluffy, or that mouthy Henry Chow, or the majority of the Pack - but if she had, she had reluctantly allowed that she wouldn't want them to get caught up in their mother's battles before they were fully-grown and able to decide for themselves.

Fluffy reached the barbed-wire fence that surrounded his then-prison, now-home, and slipped inside. He could tell at once that the building was empty - the comforting dog smell was everywhere, but stale; no fresh bursts of exuberent doggy-breath stirred the air.

He climbed onto a tattered sofa, wriggling his butt against the rough fabric and feeling his claws snag and and tear at the worn tartan upholstery, and began absent-mindedly chewing the arm-rest. It would all work out, he told himself. Once he managed to track Fifi down, it would be fine. She would know what do do about this latest threat, and they would do it together, and everything would be good again.

He yawned hugely, stretching with the pure animal enjoyment of the motion that human children know by instinct, and human adults lose and regain only through effort. He rolled onto his back, feeling the familiar rush of transgressive pleasure that he always associated with being on the couch.

"Take that, humans," he thought, rolling over again and curling up with his nose tucked warmly beneath his tail. He closed his eyes and sighed.

The sly reek of cheese stole into the room with him, tainting all the beloved dogly smells with the underlying stink of fermented dairy. Fluffy lept from the sofa, ears flattened against his skull, lips drawn back to display long yellow teeth and pink, healthy gums.

As he fled, tail between his legs, he heard a terrified whining, and knew it was coming from him.


	3. Chapter 3: Dragon(s) of the Black Pool

Beatrice the Cockatrice stood on the lip of the Rift, gently blowing super-heated puffs of steam over a barrel-sized cup of drinking chocolate clutched in her two front paws. Her vast, lambent eyes surveyed the world on the other side of the Rift, and she breathed deep, filling her lungs with the exotic, exciting smells of soy sauce and peanut oil, fried rice, and in the distance, overlaying it all, the enticing scent of fields of golden corn, ripening under an alien sun.

Today, however, something else came to her on the breeze. A metallic taste against the roof of her mouth, one that brought back memories that were hundreds of years old, when she had hidden in dark chasms and leapt out at unsuspecting human travellers, who had screamed and struggled and filled the air with the stink of their mortal dread.

Beatrice turned at a thick churning sound behind her, heavy scaled coils being dragged through fertile loam, and a low sussuration of a million tiny snakes hissing and writhing against each other.

"Good morning, Beatrice," said Echidna, slithering up and pooling her enormous length into a neat pile of looping flesh, the better to raise herself snout-to-beak with her fellow legend. "How does the dawn find you?"

"With rosy-tipped fingers stroking golden warmth on my skin," Beatrice gave the traditional response to the traditional greeting. "Hot chocolate?"

"Thank you, no," replied Echidna, smoothing her mane of snakes with her barbed tail. "Have you seen my daughter about?"

The Mother of Monsters had at least two dozen female offspring that Beatrice knew of, and probably more besides, but there was no doubt as to which one she meant.

"She went through the Rift before the human sun came up," said Beatrice. "I didn't see her come back."

Echidna sighed, and her snakey tresses hissed along with it, coiling and knotting around each other. The motion made Beatrice feel a little seasick, and she focused on Echnida's blunt serpentine nose instead. Of course, accidental eye-contact would hardly result in them turning each other to stone, but it wasn't considered polite among their people.

"Off to play with her little human friends again, no doubt," she said wearily. "I tell you, Beatrice, I could wish my people followed the Dragon Path sometimes. Snake Path is so hard on our young girls."

"I've often thought it would be fun to take a human aspect," said Beatrice. "They seem to lead such busy, exciting lives; always moving, always going somewhere..."

Echidna snorted. "They run around like chickens with the heads cut off, you mean," she said, then froze. "Beatrice, forgive me, that was horribly rude..."

Beatrice waved the apology away. "I know it's a figure of human speech," she said. "No offense taken, pay it no mind."

Echidna swayed from side to side in embarrassment. "I certainly didn't mean to imply... you know that I have the utmost respect for your people..." she stuttered.

"Really, it's fine," said Beatrice. "You were telling me about Lamia's progress along Snake Path?"

Echidna visibly wilted with relief at the opportunity to change the subject.

"I know it's our tradition," she said. "But I can't help thinking it does more harm than good. Here is my wonderful snake-girl, all white and silver and so strong and quick, Beatrice, she can already wrestle young Cereberus into submission half the time, and you know what a brute he is... anyway, and then I tell her, "Darling, you must squeeze eighty feet of serpentine pride into the body of a human girl, and go out and beguile young men with your feminine wiles so you can eat them up" and... well, sometimes I think it does more harm than good. A snake should be a snake, Beatrice. Adhering to human beauty standards is just going to cause problems in the long run."

"Oh, but she is very beautiful," said Beatrice. "I'm sure all the human boys are very impressed with her."

"I know," said Echidna. "But I just want more for her. Our family is over three thousand years old; why shouldn't she simply rampage and trample over the human cities like her brothers? Besides, I hate the idea of her out there in that blonde monkey-skin of hers, so small and vulnerable. What if she gets into trouble and can't shed it fast enough?"

"What does her father say?" Beatrice wanted to know.

Echidna made a small noise of irritation in the back of all her throats. "You know Typhon; tradition this and tradition that." She sighed. "I love him, of course, and he simply dotes on Lamia; he wants the world for her, but he wants it the way it was when we were young monsters ourselves; golden hair, white breasts, a siren song and a cave littered with the bones of foolish lustful young men. He doesn't see how he risks stifling her creativity with his tales of the glorious olden days."

Beatrice made a vague sound of acknowledgement. Like all Cockatrice, she had only a father, no mother, and would never have children of her own, though if she had, she would have liked a daughter like Lamia.

Of course, Lamia was shy and a little awkward, in her true skin or her human one, and Beatrice thought that if she ever rampaged across the human world with the rest of her many-headed siblings, she would forever be apologising to the little hairless apes crushed to paste beneath her pale coils. Nevertheless, there was a burning curiousity in her pink, hooded eyes that held your attention; a drive to explore, to discover, and the intelligence to use whatever she had found.

"I think," she said carefully, aware she may even now be overstepping, "I think the two of you raised a smart girl, and one who'll make her own decisions about what she'll want her life to look like."

Echidna shook herself, laughing a little and shaking her enormous scaled head. "I'm being silly," she said. "You're right, of course. I don't know why I feel so anxious today."

"There is something strange in the human world this morning," Beatrice offered. "It tastes a little like when I used to hunt in Albion, centuries ago."

"Really?" asked Echidna, turning pale with alarm. "Do you think there could be some sort of predator out there?"

"I don't know," said Beatrice. "It's been so long since anything challenged us here, I can't say for sure that I didn't just imagine it."

"Help put up the child safety gate anyway," said Echidna decisively. "Just in case. If there's something out there, I don't want the little ones sneaking out unaccompanied."

The "safety gate" was an enormous black door forged of cold iron and the blood of ancient monster-slayers, and a lock made from the shattered skull of Hercules himself. It stank of terror and immortal lives ended by violence, and it singed the tender pink pads of Beatrice's paws when she hefted her end. She gritted her beak and tried to hold it with her claws as they braced it across the lower half of the Rift, and fastened it in place by anchoring the bones of Bellerophon to the rocky walls on either side of the gap.

"If you see Lamia, will you tell her to come straight home?" asked Echidna, when the unpleasant task was done. "She should be back soon in any case - I asked her to babysit while I drive Orthrus to a job interview - but I think I'll stay home with the little ones instead." She glanced apprehensively at the still-shimmering light of the Rift, now somewhat muted but never able to be entirely sealed.

"Of course," said Beatrice.


End file.
